I’m ripping my hair out here on day 2 of trying to find a solution. I have what I think is such a simple issue, but for the life of me cannot find a fix that isn’t an absurd on-going monthly subscription.
Scenerio:
I have one product (a bag) on my website. I want to sell these in bundles of 100, 250 and 500. So I set up a ‘quantity’ variant for 100, 250 and 500. Obviously each variant is a different price, so I update the prices accordingly next to the variants. They are all the same product, so I give them all the same SKU. That all works great.
The issue is when it comes to inventory levels. Shopify doesn’t natively let you set a inventory quantity at the PRODUCT level. They want you to enter inventory at the VARIANT level. Which is a problem obviously, because all the variants are pulling from the same physical inventory.
So this leads me to installing 3rd party apps to solve the problem. Unfortunately, the pricing on these is absurd. Fair enough if you’re a large business with huge inventory and lots of sales, I guess $10/month or something extra isn’t a big deal. But if you’re a micro business literally just starting out, with one single product, it’s overkill to be paying an ongoing monthly subscription, forever. Unfortunately most apps don’t have a ‘pay as you grow’ model. It’s generally $10-$30/month straight from the start, and I simply can’t warrant that.
I’ve tried searching for a solution and all I’m getting is many forum posts of people with the same issue, and some developer of a paid app responding to try and get the sale. I guess I’m just reaching out as a last ditch effort to see if anyone has managed to solve this issue without paying an absurd amount? I don’t mind paying a one-off fee, but I won’t pay ongoing monthly. It just doesn’t make sense.
Thanks for any and all help. Apologies for the rant!
Hi, I’m gathering by no replies that you’ve not had any luck resolving this? We’re in a similar situation where we have a product (ie sourdough) & want to have a set amount to sell but that customers can choose a variant (without that being capped).
Similarly I don’t want to pay for yet another app to do something that should be quite easy to fix at Shopify level.
Unfortunately, no, this issue was never resolved. A paid app COULD resolve it, but I’m stubborn and don’t believe a simple feature like this should be an ongoing subscription.
Hi there, @brl23 and @MOTHMatters . Thanks for taking the time to contribute to the Shopify Community with your feedback and thoughts around this inventory situation. As both of you have mentioned, currently, Shopify doesn’t offer a native solution for this sort of inventory tracking, but third party apps can be used to achieve this functionality. With that being said, we’re always collecting feedback on ways we can improve the Shopify platform, and feedback is an important part of that. I’m going to make sure our Feedback Team is aware of this thread and the sentiments shared here, that way folks internally know how valuable this functionality would be if offered natively. Thanks again for your feedback, and helping us identify pain-points for merchants across the globe.
It’s unbelievable that we are still facing the same issue year after year while it’s such an easy feature to implement. Inventory for the main product, option for inventory for the Variants. An example, you sell books, you offer the Variant “add signature”, you have 100 books but unlimited signatures, if people buy the Variant, Shopify will consider it’s unlimited stock, OR if by mistake you have put 100 (for Books and for Signature) then Shopify will assume you have 200 in stock. Shopify can’t even deal with that? after years and many people asking for it. PLEASE DO SOMETHING, thank you!
It is exhausting. I am using an app currently but i dont have a way to export my orders to show the variants someone chose since i am using an app. I have to manually type out all my orders so that i have a spreadsheet to show what i need to make. it is so freaking frustrating.
Just weighing in here to say that the year is 2026 and this problem has not been solved. @Shopify - would this really be so hard to put in the next update? Y’all like to change tons of stuff that no one asked for, so how about solving a simple issue!
This is an old thread so I’m not sure if these other people are even around anymore, but it’s worth noting that in the o.p. case scenario, where you have 1 product with no variants, but sell in increments, variants is not what you want to do.
Short answer lies in the quantity selector itself. You can edit the code to where the qty selector is incremented however you want. You sell in packs of 10? Set minimum of 10, value of 10 and step of 10. You can even code it as a drop-down with certain quantities.
If the product is the only variant, the inventory is essentially “product-level”. Setting a “quantity variant option” is the problem.
I am trying to accomplish this as well. I have an Etsy shop and would like to have to the best of both worlds. In my Etsy shop this is a click of a button. But there is no solution for Shopify. I sell wood Jewelry and things like the necklace or bolo leather is customizable. But the pendant and bolo slide are not. I have lots of material to make these things with, but only so many pendants and bolo slides. So if I have a bolo slide design for example and I make 12 of them. But I have 16 variants! I don’t have 16 bolos in stock. its just so ridiculous. I am at a point were I need to not track inventory and keep an eye on things and makes sure I hide them when they are sold out. On top of that I have my Etsy inventory to keep tabs on. It’s just a nightmare to manage and it is preventing me from even opening my Shopify site. I’ve been wanting to open a site, but I don’t if Shopify is the product for me. I may have to cancel.
Thanks so much for chiming in, and I do understand the difference in OP’s original issue - as well as the ability to set incremental quantity for purchases. But that does not in any way resolve the problem of not being able to set product-level inventory. As described by other posters, when your variants are pulling from the same inventory, one needs to be able to set a top-level inventory that is not related to the variants.
I also understand that this thread is old. That was my point of posting. It’s been 2.5 years and @Shopify has not resolved this basic and widespread problem. Like @nnwoodwork just mentioned - Etsy (which has its own slew of other issues) offers this as a standard feature.
Not sure how else to get @Shopify’s attention on this except posting and complaining unfortunately.